Upcoming SF Events in April

If there’s anything SF readers and watchers, gamers and otakus enjoy more than their particular hobbies, it’s getting together to talk with like-minded people. Doing so on the web is great, as is doing it in person.

What follows is a list of some of the events that will happen over the month of April. It is by no means comprehensive, but I do try for geographical and thematic variety. Feel free to add events near you, large or small, in the comments.

Script Frenzy
April 1-30
Worldwide
For the writers who don’t do novels and feel left out by NaNoWriMo, there’s script frenzy. The challenge: write 100 pages of scripted material (scripts for plays, films, TV, graphic novels are all welcome) in one month. According to the website, prizes for participants include: happiness, creative juices, pride, laughter, bragging rights and a brand-new script.

A film that many have been looking forward to for a long time will make it to theaters starting April 4th in Finland and Norway – other countries will follow. See the Moon Nazi’s Colonization Plan for more info on when the film is coming to a theatre near you.

Celebrating its 30th edition, this year’s festival opens with James McTeigue’s The Raven and continues non-stop for 12 days with films like Vincent Kok’s Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, James Mather and Stephen St. Leger’s Lockout (with Luc Besson helping out on the script) and Kazuya Murata’s Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos. As you can see, there are films from all over the world and for every taste.

There are several ways to find out who this year’s Hugo nominees are. The fastest is to be home sitting at the computer and keep hitting “reload” on Tor.com. But the most fun is to be at one of the above listed conventions and be there in person when the announcements are made — who knows, you just may be sitting next to one of the nominees and be the first to congratulate them!

In addition to everything you can expect to see and do at a general interest SF convention, RavenCon is also running a book drive for Books on Wheels, a local charity that strives to encourage young people to read.

An annual celebration aiming to spread the love of reading, World Book Night will see thousands of people go out in their communities and give out free World Book Night paperbacks. Books of all kind are included and this year’s books include Octavia Butler’s Kindred, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, Stephen King’s The Stand and some obscure YA book called The Hunger Games.

This year’s Eurocon will also be the 34th SFeraKon — the oldest convention in Croatia, held each year in Zagreb. The geographically diverse Guests of Honor are: Russian writer Dmitry A. Glukhovsky, Croatian writer Darko Macan, American writer Tim Powers and British Writer Charles Stross.

René Walling is a fan of SF, animation and comics, this has led him to co-chair Anticipation, the 2009 Worldcon, be involved with fps magazine for more than a decade and start Nanopress, a Canadian small press. He looks forward to living on Mars where he would benefit from having more than 24 hours in a day.